


softly wrenching, grimly descending

by R_Gunns



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Demons, Gen, Horror, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-02 02:27:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4042249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Gunns/pseuds/R_Gunns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(hunching, taunting, <i>here's your warning</i>)</p><p>He is, for the first time in a long, long time, unsettled by his blindness. He can’t ignore the niggling feeling that there’s someone there, just out of reach, quietly watching him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> /Starts yet another wip 'cause I'm an asshole. For [this prompt](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1296.html?thread=2486288#cmt2486288) that wanted Matt being haunted.
> 
> Keep an eye on the tags, I'll be adding as the fic progresses.

It has been two weeks.  
  
It has been two weeks and Matt thinks he’s going insane. He’d woken up one night to the sound of his kitchen tap running, assumed the knut inside the knob had broken, but when he’d padded his way to the kitchen and turned it, he found that it was turned _on_. Nothing broken at all. He turned it off, confused, but went back to bed.  
  
It happened again the next night. Matt didn’t bother to hit the clock by his bed to get the time, **it would have told him 00:01am, if he had** just turned the tap off, twisting it tight enough that it squeaked in protest. He’d call a plumber in the morning.  
  
The plumber had fiddled, shrugged, then fiddled some more. Matt waited.  
  
“Oh,” he said, remembering Matt couldn’t see him, “Sorry. But I dunno what to tell you man. Can’t find nothin’ wrong with it.” So he thanked him and showed him out.  
  
He was out the following two nights, but the tap wasn’t on when he got in, so he assumed it had stopped; only, no, the next night he stays in, and he wakes up **the time is 00:01am, Matthew does not know this** to the tap running. He ignores it, tries to go back to sleep. Then, abruptly, it goes off. Matt has a second to think that he should get a second opinion from a different plumber, when the tap in his _bathroom_ turns on. He jumps, twitches in his bed. Stupid. There’s nothing to be afraid of, he would hear anyone come in, footsteps or--

  
  
_breathing_. Someone is breathing in his bathroom.  
  
His entire body goes rigid, terrified. He fights bad guys almost every day, is out at night on his own and never feels scared. But this is different, somehow.  
  
He doesn’t have any weapons in his bedroom (stupid, _stupid_ , all locked away in that cupboard) and he can’t tell from here how big the person is, whether they have any weapons. He’s just about steeling himself to make a run for the kitchen in hopes of grabbing a knife, when as abruptly as it’d started the tap goes off, and the breathing is gone. He lies still, strains to hear something, anything that would suggest someone is or was in his apartment. But there’s no footsteps, no shifting of air around a body, no closing of doors and no breathing. Nothing was there. **No one is breathing**.  
  
No one is breathing, Matt included. He lets out a long breath, shakily inhales, then gets out of bed and makes his way across the lounge to the cupboard where he keeps his daredevil gear. He pulls out weapons he can use to protect himself with, then makes his way back to his bedroom, irritated at himself for being worked up over what was probably a nightmare.  
  
As he crosses the apartment he is, for the first time in a long, long time, unsettled by his blindness. He would know if someone was there, he _would_. He’d hear their heartbeat, or smell them, or sense the movement of air.  
  
But he can’t ignore the niggling feeling that there’s someone there, just out of reach, quietly **quietly** watching him.  
  
He’s not wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the week passes like clockwork. He either goes out and there’s nothing, or he stays in and the kitchen tap wakes him up **the time is 00:01am** and he goes and turns it off, not because he’s afraid, not because he doesn’t want a repeat of the night with the breathing, but because the tap is on, and it’d be wasting water not to turn it off.  
  
So he wakes up, he turns off the tap, he goes back to sleep. He wakes up, he turns off the tap, he goes back to sleep. He calls in another plumber who can’t find a single thing wrong with the kitchen tap or the entire buildings pipes. He goes to sleep. He wakes up, he turns off the tap, he goes back to sleep.  
  
Foggy invites himself round on-- a day, a weekday, he’s not entirely sure, days have been passing in what feels like seconds, but he’s pretty sure it’s a weekday, and he’s pretty sure that Foggy has cottoned onto the fact that there’s something wrong **there’s something wrong?** and he doesn’t have the energy to say no, so he says okay and he opens the door to let it, to let. To, uh-  
  
“Dude? You gonna let me in?” Foggy asks. Matt shakes himself, smiles. He lets Foggy in. They drink beer and talk and they put on a nameless TV show that Foggy enjoys.  
  
It’s late when the conversation tapers off into drunken silence and Foggy shifts against the sofa, slurs, “Hey dude, s’it okay if I crash here? Think if I try t’ get the subway home now I’ll end up fallin’ on the tracks or someth’n.” Matt laughs and shoves at Foggy’s shoulder. He’s always found it slightly harder than Foggy to get drunk, and tonight is no exception. He’s feeling content, his muscles are looser, and he’s a little unsteady on his legs, but that’s about it.  
  
“I’ll get you a throw,” he tells Foggy, pushing himself to his feet, and weaving his way to his bedroom. He’s half way there when the tap goes on. He freezes, waits for Foggy to speak, feeling inexplicably anxious about what he’ll say. It’s _nothing_ , it’s stupid, it’s just a broken tap but he still can’t help but feel like Foggy shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t _see_ this, though it’s nothing it’s nothing at all it’s a goddamn leaky _tap_.  
  
“I should probably get that fixed,” he says finally, aiming for casual, but he can hear the tightness, the fear in his voice. He only hopes Foggy doesn’t.  
  
There’s a pause.  
  
“What?” says Foggy finally, and maybe he’s a little drunker than Matt thought, because he sounds confused.  
  
“The tap. I should probably get it fixed.”  
  
“Um, I don’t-- Okay?” Foggy says, and it sounds like he’s frowning. He doesn’t sound all that drunk any more. “Are you okay Matt?”  
  
Matt’s fine. Matt is fine. “Yeah. I just-- you hear the tap right? The water running?” and there’s a pause. There’s a pause, and Foggy says--  
  
Foggy says, “No, I don’t hear it? You sure it’s not you just hearing someones pipes upstairs or something?” And he says something else, but Matt isn’t listening, because he’s thinking of all the times he’s turned the tap off, and he doesn’t remember touching the water once. Which is not all that odd, it’s not hard to turn a tap off without getting wet. But. But even still, Matt finds himself making his way to the kitchen area, ignores Foggy’s confused “ _Matty?_ ” and goes to the sink.  
  
He lifts his right hand, ignores it shaking shaking shaking and moves it towards the sound of the water rushing, where there is the displacement of air because it’s there, it’s physical, it _exists._  
  
And his hand hits nothing. His hand hits _nothing_. He waves it around beneath the tap because he missed it, maybe he missed it. _But there’s nothing there._ There's nothing-- he can hear the tap running, feel the rush of air but his hand doesn’t _feel_ \--  
  
“You okay buddy?” Foggy says from behind him, closer than he expected. Matt startles, almost falls, because his unsteady legs are suddenly like water, and there’s a rushing in his ears like running water and the tap is on but there’s no _water_ , there's nothing, it’s nothing, it’s just his hearing going awry or something, there’s nothing wrong.  
  
There’s nothing. It’s been two weeks.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want some music to listen to while reading this story, I've been listening to [Kaltfleisch Corporor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-_0ukUEnTg) by Korpses Katatonik. Super creepy, I love it. 
> 
> Also, just a quick note, this fic is sort of disregarding the world-on-fire image we saw in the show that was supposed to be how Matt saw things, because as far as I can tell, it's not really accurate. He is 100% blind with no light perception. Keep that in mind.

It takes him a good hour to calm himself down enough to think logically about what had happened, to reason that he’s not been sleeping well for at _least_ two weeks now, and hasn’t had a full night in who knows how long because of his daredevil thing. More than likely he’s just really, really sleep deprived. It then takes him another two hours to fully convince Foggy that he’s fine, the panic attack in the kitchen was nothing, **It’s nothing** he just needs some water and some sleep and he’ll be fine.   
  
He manages to get Foggy to drop it finally, with the promise that he won’t do anything daredevil-related for at least a few nights, just to be safe. He agrees, somewhat relieved about the choice being taken out of his hands- his focus is clearly bad enough that his senses aren’t working right at the moment, and he doesn’t want to risk that affecting him during a fight.   
  
So he goes to bed. Makes sure Foggy has a blanket and and anything else he needs, studiously ignoring what he’s sure is increasingly pointed worried looks in his direction, and he goes to bed.   
  
There’s nothing from the tap. Matt knows because his alarm goes off at 7am, shrill and long, and he’s already awake to hear it. He groans, waving his hand around till he finds the snooze button, then slowly gets himself ready for work. He’s halfway through a bowl of cereal with some coffee brewing when Foggy stirs on the sofa, breathing picking up ever so slightly. Matt hears him crack a yawn.  
  
“Ugh. Why are you awake right now?” he asks. He’s only pretending to be annoyed, but Matt can hear some confusion in his voice. He huffs a laugh, smiles.  
  
“We do have to work for a living Foggy.”   
  
“Uh yeah,” Foggy says, “But not on a Sunday.” Matt feels the smile slip off of his face.   
  
“Sunday?” he repeats.  
  
“Yup, just like how tomorrow is Monday, and yesterday was Saturday,” Matt hears foggy shift about so he’s sitting properly upright, probably watching Matt with concerned eyes. “You okay dude?”   
  
Yesterday was Saturday. _Yesterday was Saturday?_ He’d been at work yesterday, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he come home with Foggy? Or, no-- he’d come home alone, and Foggy had come after dinner. How, how had he-- Matt shakes himself.  
  
“Fine, I’m fine.” He drops his bowl in the sink, ignores the dubious cracking sound it makes, and says “I’m going back to bed. See you in a few hours.”   
  


-

  
After that though, things go back to normal. He gets up just before midday, has breakfast with Foggy while they talk over a case, then spends the rest of the day in bed listening to--  
  
Things are back to normal. He doesn’t hear the tap go off at all the next night, or the next. He listens. He lays in bed and he focuses and he hears nothing, no pipes creaking, no handle turning, no water rushing. He listens. He gets up, has coffee, goes to work, ignores Foggy’s worried questions, ignores Foggy’s invitations for dinner or hanging out, goes home, gets into bed. Listens. Listens. There’s nothing. He gets up.  
  
Matt’s back to normal. He goes to bed. He listens. **the tap turns on** There’s nothing. **the tap is running** He doesn’t. He doesn’t hear anything. **the tap is running** he doesn’t, **the tap is** it’s nothing. He listens. He gets up. He goes to work.  
  
Maybe a week passes, of nothing happening at night. But then he’s in bed, and his throat catches, and he finds himself coughing. So he goes to the kitchen for some water, gets a glass and, _woops_ \- slippery fingers, drops it in the sink. He reaches a tentative hand down to pick it up, wraps his fingers around it and, “ _Shit_ ,” lets go quickly when he feels something slice sharply through flesh. He grabs for the towel that should be hanging over the oven door, aiming to staunch the bleeding until he can figure out how deep it is, but his hand finds nothing.   
  
So he shuts off the tap, quickly heads to the bathroom and grabs a towel from there, presses it to his hand and hopes it’s not bad enough he’ll have to get stitches. He stands there for a moment, approximately opposite the mirror over his sink, trying to center himself and even out his breathing. He’s getting there, and as the initial adrenaline rush wears off he can tell the cut isn’t that bad, but he’s still finding it hard to concentrate-- there’s something bugging him, something on the periphery of his awareness that’s distracting him, something- something is _buzzing_. A hollow sound, like a wasp caught under a glass. He twitches, casts his awareness out to figure out where it’s coming from, then freezes. Looks upward, though it’s useless.   
  
The buzzing is above him, coming from the the light bulbs that stretch across the ceiling. They’re the old kind, long fluorescent pipes that buzz with electricity, the _tink tink tink_ echoing through the room as they flicker on and off. The hairs on the back of Matt’s neck stand up, and goosebumps spread in a wave down his arms and back. He looks back down, away from the light, and he-  
  
 _he can see_.  
  
He can see the mirror fixed above his sink, dusty with disuse, and beyond that, the bathroom reflected around him, the image flickering in and out with the lights, and his reflection, his reflection- his--  
  
there is someone standing in the doorway.  
  
His vision fades back out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so something a commenter showed me very much influenced this chapter, so if you're interested:   
> http://mentalfloss.com/uk/health/30005/people-with-no-eyes-still-see-ghosts


	4. Chapter 4

Matt inhales sharply, turns to face the doorway and makes himself go very, very still. He drops his towel in the process, instead bracing himself, waiting, _waiting_ for something, but there’s nothing, no breathing, nothing moving, nothing he can sense in the room with him. Maybe it had been a hallucination; he’d _seen_ it after all, it makes more sense that the sleep deprivation is getting to him and his brain is convincing him he’s seeing things.  
  
He takes a tentative step forward, fists clenched, focusing on the doorway. On the blank space where there should be nothing. His focus is not, however, on the steady trickle of blood that’s dripping from his hand to the floor, so _woops_ , the floor’s slippery, and Matt loses his footing and falls backward, doesn’t have time to correct his balance before his head snaps back and a sharp _crack_ echoes through the room as his skull collides with the porcelain sink.  
  
Everything goes fuzzy for a little while. It spreads from the back of his head to his ears, his nose, and he feels like someone has placed headphones over his head, feels like a hand is clasped firmly over his mouth.  
  
The hand is clammy, stinks of blood, and the copper tang against his lips makes him gag. It stays there for a moment, heavy, until his chest hitches and his eyes water, and he regains enough control of his body to thrash about, panicking. He kicks his legs out and swings a fist towards where the arm should be but finds nothing. He desperately claws at his face, trying to remove the hand that’s making the numbness spread up his fingers, through his lungs, he claws and tears and digs tiny bloody crescents into skin but only finds his own flesh, his own blood that wells and leaks like tears down his cheeks.  
  
He’s close to passing out when the hand disappears and he can _breathe_ again, sucks in sharp, desperate gasps for air, his whole body shaking like he’s possessed.  
  
Like he’s--  
  
The thought runs through his head like a freight train, and in his state causes something like an animal panic to wash over him; panting, teeth chattering, he tries to push himself up but finds he can barely lift his head, just enough that when he gags and vomits it only hits his chin, splatters across his chest instead of choking him. He settles his head back against the tile for a while, feels wetness soak against his hair, the collar of his shirt. He breaths, pants, listens and listens and listens to the roaring numbness till slowly, ever so slowly, his focus comes back to him and he can throw his awareness out around him. He listens for minutes **for hours** to every creak of a water pipe and brush of wind against a loose windowpane, to the buzzing of the light above him, and the _plink plink plink_ as it flickers on and off.  
  
After a while he manages to pull himself together, not fully, not entirely, still frightened and hurt and confused enough that his teeth are chattering with how hard his body shakes, and he finds himself jumping at every noise that filters through the panic. But he manages to get himself upright, sort of; on his hands and knees, somewhat stable enough that he can drag and crawl his way across his bathroom floor and towards the hallway where his phone is. He finds himself stuck, for a while, at the doorway. Thinks of the figure, of the snarled body that stood behind him, grotesque and looming, and he fights back a whimper. Instead pushing forward, resolutely ignoring the chill that rushes through him as he passes through, the phantom tugging at his heels, fingers catching and pulling.  
  
But he ignores it. He ignores it and he drags his body forward, to the coffee table where his phone lies and waits for him. He presses a bloody fingerprint to the 1 and listens to it ring once, three times, four, before Foggy picks up, harried and half asleep. “Matt?”  
  
Matt blinks away the trickle of blood that settles against his lashes, ignores more of it trickling down his spine and flaking on his cheeks, ignores the phantom hands pinching and scratching at his skin. He ignores it all, and he says, “ _Help me_.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about taking so long to update, I'm moving to another country so am quite busy at the moment!

The phone hits his floor with a crack. Foggy is coming, Foggy will help him, will tell him he’s having temporary hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep, or- or he’ll explain that Matt is sleeping right _now_ , and help him wake up. Or. Or if it’s brain, Foggy will help.

And if, maybe, the thing that made him _see_ , that lives in his pipes and speaks whispers against his bathroom door, if it’s _real_ \--

If the hand that clings, warm and wet, to his ankle, solid and _there_ , just like the one over his mouth had been, if that’s real

If the woozy bloodless feeling that’s washed over him isn’t from blood loss **superficial wounds, he hasn’t lost more than a few teaspoons** then it’s from something _else_ ; a snarled body, skin cracked and weeping, hunched over in a doorway too small for it.

Matt covers his mouth against the high, reedy sound that threatens to come out at the thought. _If I don’t make a sound_ , he thinks hysterically, _maybe it will forget I’m here._ He just has to ignore the hands, and be quiet quiet quiet till Foggy comes.

Time blurs, and Matt waits, scared and alone alone alone alone  _alone on his own there's no one there_

 

The hand disappears suddenly from his ankle then, and Matt has the barest breadth of a second to think that the thing is gone, when the hand comes back, cupping his chin with something like gentleness. He can't help but jerk out of its grip, skittering back with a shriek. He could ignore the pain from the tight grip around his ankle, the sting of nails digging into his thigh, but the softness, the pretence of  _kindness_ is too much. He shakes and shakes and thinks desperately of dawn coming, a Pavlovian response stirring within him at the promise of daylight; not something that he notices himself, but the sun has so far always brought with it safety and he can't help but crave it with a sort of desperate addiction. 

He thinks of dawn, and he thinks of Foggy, and he stops fighting the pull of unconsciousness. 

*

Foggy was having a great day. Emphasis on  _was_ , because before now he'd been marvelling at his most recent pay-check, had been excitedly helping his sister plan her wedding over the phone, and had had a  _really_ good lunch. But now it's almost 6am and Foggy is staring at Matt's open front door. Not like, just unlocked, or not-quite-pulled-to, but full on _getting the sense that something terrible has happened, the only way this is possible is if Matt is incapacitated_ type of open. Also Matt's lights are on, which is a terrifying thing in and of itself. Foggy isn't even sure he's ever  _seen_  Matt's lights on before. 

He takes a step through the doorway, calls out, "Matt?" as he moves into the apartment, staring worriedly at his surroundings. The place is  _filthy_. Plates and bowls only half cleared of food scatter every surface possible, some of them mouldy enough that Foggy's sure Matt hasn't cleaned in at least a week, if more. There are spillages left un-mopped on his sofa and on the kitchen floor, the fridge is left open, the food inside maggot-eaten and rotting. Foggy listens to flies buzz around him. Foggy stares and stares and wonders how the fuck he missed that there was something so awfully wrong with Matt that this has happened. 

Which is when he hears a groan from the living room.

" _Buddy?"_ Foggy asks tentatively. He picks his way across the floor, avoiding clothes and plates and other clutter, and finds Matt, previously obscured from his vision by the sofa and newly replaced coffee table.

Foggy inhales sharply at the sight of him, then drops to his knees and vomits helplessly.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your lovely comments! I didn't think anyone cared that much about me continuing this so it's good to know :) and for those of you that asked, I'm moving from the UK to Germany. Exciting but stressful! (Oh also: I was listening to [Son Lux](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL35e5mwD5I) while writing this chapter. The video's pretty cool.)

Here's how Foggy's spent the last six weeks: it starts with Matt going quiet, which isn't all that unusual. He does that sometimes; curls in on himself for a few weeks, tired and burnt out, and probably depressed, not that Foggy's ever asked. He leaves him to it, pretends not to notice the rattle of prescription bottles in his pockets, and after a while Matt settles back into his skin and becomes Matt again. So when he turns down invitations for drinks and offers to hang out, Foggy thinks, okay, give him some time, ask him again in another week or two. 

But Matt is so  _quiet_ , so numb and emotionless that Foggy can't let it go. He invites himself over on a Saturday evening, when Matt spends the day ignoring his calls. Matt's a dick and he does that sometimes, so Foggy isn't too worried. Just enough to grab a six pack and head over to Matt's apartment though. Knocks on the door and waits, rubbing his arms to fend off a sudden chill. Matt opens the door after a second, looking a bit pale, but otherwise not terrible. He stares blankly for a second at a point beyond Foggy's shoulder, till Foggy asks, "Dude? You gonna let me in?" and Matt shakes himself and smiles, a little tightly, and lets Foggy in. 

The rest of the night passes uneventfully. Matt gets tipsy, Foggy gets drunk, they talk a little, Foggy holding up most of the conversation, till it gets pretty late and Foggy says “Hey dude, s’it okay if I crash here? Think if I try t’ get the subway home now I’ll end up fallin’ on the tracks or someth’n.” 

Matt laughs and shoves at him (and Foggy notes he's looking more himself, thank god) and grabs him a throw. After that Foggy curls up on the sofa and falls into a dreamless sleep. He doesn't wake up to Matt at the sink, or Matt turning the tap or Matt having a panic attack, doesn't hear anybody speaking either, just sleeps straight through till morning. 

He wakes up to Matt getting ready for work, has to inform him that no, it's most definitely the weekend, then falls back asleep again. Later, they talk over breakfast about the case, about the holiday Foggy has booked, but pointedly not about Matt forgetting the date, or anything else Matt clearly has on his mind. Foggy is still a little worried, but he leaves him anyway, with an empty offer of drinks the next night- he knows they won't end up going. 

A week passes and Matt stays quiet and grim. Karen starts to ask questions and Foggy has to awkwardly explain that Matt just... gets like this sometimes. Karen nods like she's come to some sort of realisation, and that's that. Then Foggy goes on holiday for two weeks, spends his time with his family dragged into the excitement surrounding his sisters wedding, trying to ignore the niggling feeling that something isn't right with Matt.

He gets home on the Sunday, checks his account balance, treats himself to a nice lunch, goes to bed early and then is woken up in the early hours of the morning to the disorientating sound of his phone ringing. 

*

The initial shock of seeing Matt wears off quickly; his skin is pallid and waxy where it's not covered in blood and he's so very, very still that Foggy thinks, what with how the rest of the apartment looks, that Matt is dead. But then he remembers the groan, sees his chest rising and falling and exhales sharply in relief. Okay. He shuffles closer on his knees, checks Matt's breathing- fine, if a little fast, and sets about cataloguing the wounds on the rest of his body. 

He sees pretty quickly that this isn't a daredevil thing. Matt's only in his boxers, for starters, but as he swipes at the blood to check for any dangerous wounds that mean he needs to call Claire, or maybe an ambulance, he notices that most of them are  _scratches_. Some barely scraping the skin, but others are deep gouges in his flesh; covering his chest, his arms, even his thighs and his face. Where there isn't scratches there's little crescent moons left by fingernails, bruises in the shape of hand prints, some fading, but others newly blooming around his ankle, across his face. Foggy stares at Matt, tries to come up with an explanation for this other than what it looks like, what he thinks it is. 

But then he takes Matt's hands in his own, looks at his palms first and finds them bloody, but otherwise unmarred. When he turns them over his breath hitches. Matt's nails are bloody, torn, with bits of flesh caught under them.  _Fuck._ Foggy is not equipped to deal with this. He looks at the bloody fingerprints on Matt's own phone where it lays on the floor, the screen smashed. 

 

He fishes his own phone from his pocket and calls Claire. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, long time no see! Turns out being an exchange student takes up like 150% of your time, so my apologies for the wait. This chapter is only short, just getting back into the swing of things :)
> 
> (Previously: Foggy discovers Matt surrounded by his own filth and apparently torn apart by his own bloody fingernails. He calls Claire.)

The déjà vu is intense. Foggy had wished and prayed to a God he doesn’t believe in that he’d never have to go through this again, the desperate worrying over Matt’s almost-lifeless body as dawn light begins to cast eerie shadows across his skin, briefly reflecting off of pools of blood and sightless eyes before rising fully over the skyline and letting Foggy see the full extent of his injuries. But evidently his prayers weren’t answered, because here he is doing it all over again, watching Matt vigilantly for any signs he’s going to do something terrible like die before Claire can come patch him up.

So it’s the same, but different: before, Matt’s place had been smashed up a bit from a previous fight with Stick, now there isn’t smashed up furniture but an overwhelming mess that’s causing a sort of desperate worry to knot itself in his gut. Before, discovering Matt had led to the discovery of Daredevil, and now it’s- he’s certain whatever it is he’s going to find out isn’t good. Before, it had been Nobu. And now? His gut fingers curl into fists without his say so at the thought, and he feels uncomfortable even having it, but the evidence is telling him that these injuries- they were all Matt.

And doesn’t it say something about his life that he’s actually hoping that there’s a bad guy with drugs or a weird alien (that really should be the Avengers’ area) behind this, someone physical to blame, because the alternative is that this is just Matt; strong, brave Matt who own worst enemy has always been himself.

So he pushes the thought away, and he sits, and he waits for Claire.

*

Claire is her usual brusque self. Foggy has met her a half dozen more times since they were first introduced over a pool of Matt’s blood, and thank God none of those situations were close to as horrific as that first time, even if more than a few did involve Matt’s blood. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun and she has her scrubs on; the smell of antiseptic and sweat follows her in, so Foggy guesses she’s just come off of a long shift, notes to feel bad about that later, when he isn’t worrying out of his mind over Matt.

The sight of Matt’s apartment doesn’t shock her for too long- it clearly scares her, but she’s good enough at her job to push it to the back of her mind as she picks her way across the floor to where Foggy is sat with Matt. Her pause is a little longer then, when she catches sight of him.

“What-” she trails off, sets her medical kit on the coffee table and settles on her knees by Matt’s head. “Okay I have about a hundred questions right now, and _fuck-_ ” she hisses when she sees the blood under Matt’s nails, eyes flickering to the scratches on his face, the bruises on his ankles and neck. There’s a second of hesitation there, the thought that maybe she’s in over her head with this, not the wounds but the _cause_ , and it’s clearly written across her face. But then she squares her shoulders and pulls on her gloves, decision made.

“Do you know if there are any major wounds I need to get to first?” She asks him, fingers probing Matt’s abdomen, his chest. Foggy shakes his head minutely and watches her set to work. It turns out that the worst of it is a head wound on the knot of Matt’s skull, but even that isn’t bad enough to cause more than a concussion (even as she says this she points out that it’s a theoretical- sometimes the brain doesn’t work as it’s supposed to and little things become big. They won’t know for certain till Matt is awake). She takes care of the gouges and scratches after that, cleans and bandages his broken fingernails, and mumbles something about icing the bruises, but instead just sits back for a second and inhales deeply. 

"We need to wake him up, don't we?" Foggy asks, and her answering stare is all the answer he needs. He reaches forward and lays a gentle hand on Matt's shoulder.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I updated a mistake in one of the previous chapters: from Foggy's point of view it's been six weeks, not two months. I've created a time line of Matt vs Foggy's pov for comparison [here](http://rrgunns.tumblr.com/post/132895513272/spoilers-for-my-daredevil-fic-softly-wrenching). Also warnings for more description of gore and internalised ableism yo.

_"Do you ever get that feeling that there's something happening just beyond your peripheral vision?"_

_They are at law school. They are watching horror films curled together under a bundle of blankets and snacks, taking shots every time they can guess a death before it happens. They are veering towards drunk pretty quickly._

_"Yes actually, I assume there's quite a lot that exists beyond my lack of vision Foggy." he says, and Foggy huffs indignantly._

_"Okay, okay, no need for the snark. But do you- maybe it's just the feeling then, that there's something watching you? You ever get that? It's midday and you're in a park, the suns beating down on you and there are, I don't know, fucking birds tweeting and shit, kids playing with dogs and it's super nice. Then out of the blue everything goes quiet. It's not- there's no reason for it, just a coincidence that for a split second there's this absolute silence, and you're hit with this, like, feeling that there's someone watching you. That there's something reaching for you, fingers just an inch away from clawing at your skin, breathing so lightly you can't hear it, can only feel it, hot and wet on the back of your neck." Foggy pauses then, and Matt shifts uncomfortably. His senses mean that this could never really happen to him, but the idea of it, the way Foggy says it sends goosebumps rushing up his arms._

_"And then the birds start tweeting again. There are kids playing, and cars driving, and you turn your head to the right and laugh when you don't see anything behind you, laugh at how silly you were to think there was anything at all. But in your relief and distraction you forget. You forget, Matt, to look to your left."_

_Matt wants to point out that he isn't looking anywhere, that this isn't something that happens to him, but Foggy's voice is so serious it's starting to unsettle him. His fingers twitch against the blanket, searching for a thread to tug at, but then Foggy's laying a hand on his shoulder, heavy and without warning, and Matt practically jumps out of his skin._

_"No, shh, hey-" he says, and his other hand goes to cradle Matt's face and gently, slowly, tilts it till he's looking away from Foggy, on his right. Till his sightless eyes look left._

_"Do you see it now?" someone asks him, nails digging into the flesh of his cheek, thumb bruising against his jaw. The hand holds him in place, stops his struggling before it begins, ensures that he can't look away, sees it through damaged eyes, through closed eyelids, he sees it: a bloody snarled mass beyond his comprehension. His brain recoils, doesn't understand, tries to conceive of something beyond rotting carcasses with a pulse that beats in time with the squirm of maggots; of the feel of his father's face, exploded outward; of a toenail that tears free with the removal of a sock; of every disgusted thought he has about himself on the nights he can't make it out to protect the city, just because he's **sad**._

_"Do you see Matt?"_

_It curls and knots and winds itself around his neck, crushing his oesophagus, pushing through his skin, his eyesockets, sears down his throat till he swallows it whole, gulping convulsively against the burn._

_"Matt?"_

_Fingers press press press against his shoulder, shaking._

"Matt?"

*

Foggy sends a prayer to the God's he doesn't believe in and reaches forward to lays a gentle hand on Matt's shoulder. Matt doesn't stir, so Foggy shakes him a little, calls his name. Still nothing. He shares a worried glance with Claire, who's eyes are fearful in a way he doesn't recognise. 

"Matt?" he says again, and _finally_ gets a twitch this time, Matt's pupils flickering beneath his eyelids. 

He calls his name one last time and shakes at his shoulder maybe a little too hard, because at last Matt stirs. And he wakes up violently.


End file.
